


No Stones in Heaven

by DothTheRaven



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Angst, Depression, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mates, Sadwolf Derek, good but tortured peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 23:43:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3307580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DothTheRaven/pseuds/DothTheRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek knows the moment he meets eleven year-old Stiles that he’s found his mate. Of course he doesn’t tell the boy this, because he knows that would be creepy and would probably get him arrested. So he bides his time, and befriends the boy and falls in love and waits for the day when Stiles can be a part of his life, forever.</p><p>And really, in the end, it’s all Derek’s fault.</p><p>Stiles will become a more permanent part of Derek’s life, just not in the capacity he’s been hoping for. Not in the capacity he needs.</p><p>It’s because Derek wanted his privacy. It’s because Derek lied to his family. It’s because he wasn’t paying close enough attention.</p><p>It’s about happiness and sacrifices and loving your family and doing what’s right, even when it feels like the worst decision of your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Stones in Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> I fought with this little idea for a while (it wanted to be a very long story, which I don't have the time for at the moment), and I tried to do it justice in a more abbreviated form.
> 
> I own nothing.  
> All mistakes are my own.  
> Let me know if I missed tags or warnings.

  
  
The day Derek meets Stiles is the day he feels he is truly born. It is like waking up for the first time, realizing that every moment, every day before this one wasn’t real. The day Derek meets Stiles, Derek feels alive.

  
Stiles is four years younger than him. Four years isn’t too much. His dad had been five years younger than his mom. Derek would ask his mom to tell him over and over the story of how they met, and in the years following his dad’s death, it helped him to feel closer to the man.  
But he never understood what either of them had felt in that moment. Until now.

  
Stiles is four years younger than Derek, which isn’t too much, except Derek is only fifteen when he meets Stiles. And Stiles is eleven, and Derek knows that that he couldn’t, nor shouldn’t, tell the gangly eleven year-old boy he finds crying on the playground that he smells like he belongs to Derek. That he looks so beautiful with his splotchy face and is absolutely perfect. That just touching Stiles suddenly makes Derek aware of all of the potentials of the universe. He can close his eyes and feel such elation and happiness that he never could have imagined, and Derek knows that it has everything to do with this boy.

  
He sits down next to Stiles, and doesn’t leave until he knows his name (Stiles Stilinski—though apparently he has another name that will never ever be told), how old he is (eleven and a half), and why he is crying (his mom died last year and he misses her). Derek gives Stiles a hug that the younger boy seems to think is awkward but has never felt more right to Derek.

  
Before he leaves, Derek tells Stiles that they are going to be amazing friends, and he doesn’t want to look away from the confused hope on the boy’s face.

  
When Laura picks him and Cora up at the school, he asks his younger sister about Stiles.

  
“The Stilinski boy?” she says, her nose wrinkling. “He’s weird and he smells sad and nervous a lot. It’s annoying. He’s annoying.”

Cora pauses, as though she assumes that is enough information for Derek, and only continues when he prompts her for more.

“He talks a lot, all the time. And he moves around too, so he gets in trouble with the teachers.”

“Why do you care, little bro?” Laura asks when they near the house.

Derek shrugs. “I found him crying by himself on the playground. Just curious.”

Laura narrows her eyes, but doesn’t ask anything else. Derek knows that his heartbeat remained steady. Derek knows that his heartbeat will always remain steady talking about Stiles, even if he lies. Even when he lies.

That night he asks his mother about his dad. He doesn’t actually want to hear the story of how they met again. He doesn’t want to hear about how he died—something Derek doesn’t remember well. She talks about how he was impressed with her full shift. Only alphas could do the full shift, and the very rare beta (don’t worry honey, it’s okay to not be able to do the full shift—your father never felt like he missed out). He’s heard all of this before.

He just needs the opening to ask about mates.

“Mates?” Talia Hale queries, her mouth curving into one of her amused yet suspicious smiles. “I guess you’re of the age that you might start wondering.”

Derek shrugs. “Mark was sixteen when he found his,” he comments.

“But your cousin’s mate is a human. Derek, do you know how rare that is? To have a true mate be a human? At least she already belonged to a pack. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would have been if she hadn’t already known about werewolves and mates.” His mother sighs.

“So how do you know when you’ve found your mate?” Derek tries to sound nonchalant, and he knows that he will succeed because this too is about Stiles.

“I don’t know how to explain it, honey,” she says. “You will just know. It’s like someone has suddenly turned up the volume on the entire world, and it’s all focused around that one person, and you just know, without a doubt, that person is going to make your life full and rich and so wonderful, and that you will love them so much. It’s meeting them and already being in love with them.”

His mom brushes tears from her eyes, and for a moment, Derek feels bad about bringing this up, because it always makes her cry, because she misses dad so much.

But he needs to know.

“And there’s only ever one mate for a person?”

“One True Mate,” she says. “The theory is that there are quite a few people that are potential mates, and who you meet first, in which circumstances determines who becomes your mate. Once you Accept them as your mate, that’s the only one you’ll have. And if they die, you will have the opportunity of falling in love again, but it won’t be anything like your mate. It can be good, just not the same.”

“What do you mean, accept? Does the other person have to accept?”

“No, honey, that’s all on you. Once both you and your wolf accept that your mate is the only person for you, there is no turning back. If you don’t Accept them, then you may, though it’s unlikely, find another mate later.”

“How do you Accept them?” Derek asks.

“It’s very simple, but should not at all be taken lightly. Accepting a mate who doesn’t or can’t love you due to any number of reasons is a life-long curse. You will always suffer. Some don’t survive it.”

“Peter…”

“Yes,” Talia interrupts. “You won’t ever be whole again if that happens, so don’t do this lightly. But all you must do is speak, with the wolf, and together declare that you accept the person wholly, as your mate.”

“And The Advantage?” Derek ask, even though he already knows the answer. He read it in a book in Uncle Peter’s library, and never mentioned it to anyone.

“Ah,” Talia says. “The Advantage. It’s another way of knowing that you have met your true mate, I guess. We don’t really know how it works—the mechanisms at least. But I think it’s intended to allow for the bond to develop naturally, without the influence of pack. Werewolves have very little privacy when building relationships, so I’ve heard that The Advantage allows for us to find our mates and develop the appropriate bonds in a safe space.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” his mom smiles. “Once you find your mate, you are protected from the prying eyes and ears and noses of others in matters relating to that person.”

“So I could lie about my mate and nobody would know,” Derek clarifies, and tries to stop his heartbeat from accelerating.

“Technically yes, but I hope you won’t ever feel like you need to do that. You know that you can talk to any of us about anything.”

“Even Laura?” Derek jokes.

“Even Laura.”

“Even Peter?”

His mother pauses, a frown wrinkling her forehead. “Don’t ever talk to Peter about mates, Derek. Ever.”

“Okay,” he replies immediately, the force of her voice and intensity of her gaze startling him to comply. His mother is a very power woman, but she rarely shows that side to her children. She is always strong and kind around Derek, keeps her claws away. But now, though the real claws aren’t out, the metaphorical ones are.

Talia hugs her son, and Derek takes the opportunity to change the subject. He doesn’t need to ask anymore questions. He already knows who his mate is.

He just needs to wait.

 

Derek doesn’t stalk Stiles. That certainly isn’t what happens. After all, Derek quickly learns that Stiles’ dad is the newly elected Sheriff of Beacon Hills, and would definitely take poorly to his preteen son being stalked.

So Derek may spend more time in places that he knows Stiles frequents, and always talks to him, and remembers what they talked about before, and actually reads the comic book recommendations and has some quite rousing conversations about Marvel and DC. And Derek takes pleasure in the fragile little smiles Stiles reserves just for him. They’re hesitant, and confused, but so very genuine.

Stiles tells Derek of his latest interests, the knowledge binges that consume his days. He explains about sharks and how generators work and Roman systems of law and marriage. Derek listens to Stiles’ theory of cosmic chance and how he believes that he and Scott were meant to be best friends. Derek can’t help but hope Stiles will someday feel the same about him.

And Stiles introduces Derek to Scott. Scott is more suspicious of the older boy, and watches Derek when they interact, as though he’s waiting for him to slip and reveal a nefarious purpose. Only after Derek is given Laura’s old car and begins to drive the boys to Lacrosse games on weekends does Scott finally warm up.

And Derek waits, biting his tongue and biding his time. The hardest moments are when Stiles stinks of some chemical trace and rejection, and fidgets in misery, and Derek can do nothing about it. The hardest moments are when Stiles monologues about Lydia Martin, eyes glazing over, as he recounts the perfections of the strawberry blond genius. The hardest moments are when Derek watches Stiles grow up and has no guarantee that this vibrant, loyal, hilarious, caring boy will continue to be part of Derek’s life.

 

  
Talia Hale and Sheriff John Stilinski meet only because the Sheriff demands to know more about the older (potential creeper-alert!) boy who has taken an interest (what kind?!) in his teenage son. And so there are some family (joint) dinners, and eventually there are some dinners where the kids aren’t invited, and there are some dinners where the parents aren’t invited, and everything seems pretty fine.

When Derek leaves for college, he stays in touch with Stiles through texting and Skyping and messaging. And it isn’t enough, not nearly. He’s in NYC at a great school with friends and clubs and Central Park, but he just wants to be with Stiles. Derek talks to his family back home about once a week. He talks to Stiles almost every day—he thinks about him more.

He tells Stiles about his classes and professors and friends. He takes photos of the city and of his neighbors and sends them. Stiles reads the books in Derek’s literature classes and they talk about them for hours, even when Derek has already turned in his essays and finished his tests.

Stiles tells him about school (the terrible Mr. Harris) and Lacrosse (Finstock is batshit crazy, dude!) and Scott and his new girlfriend and a little bit about Lydia Martin (she’s dating the biggest douche in the history of douches). He tells Derek how their parents still have their regularly scheduled dinners, but Laura refuses to come, Cora sneaks out with her boyfriend, and Stiles always ends up the third wheel on an awkward date with Scott and Allison. He says anything is better than those dinners.

Derek should have asked why.

 

The hardest year is Derek’s junior year, when he studies abroad in South Africa. Cape Town is really very far away from California, and he doesn’t even come home for Christmas. They aren’t on the same time schedule, so it’s difficult to Skype, and his internet sucks, so they can’t exchange quick messages like they’re used to.

It’s also the year that Derek falls completely in love with Stiles. Derek already loved Stiles. He loved the boy the moment they met. He feels more and more certain of this the longer they know each other. But his year in South Africa changes things. Because they can’t message like they always had, Derek and Stiles take to writing long, often meandering, letters to each other. Okay, so they’re over email, but each still fills pages.

Derek describes his adventures, how he is growing as a person, how he is changing, how he is becoming someone more than just the person his family has made him to be. He writes that Stiles is a big part of who this new person is.

Stiles tells him about his mother, about how he always felt like there were parts of his life and himself that weren’t right. He felt like he wasn’t good enough for his dad, that his parents never deserved the troubled spaz that he is. How he often feels that his life is just a little off center, everything just slightly out of place. Everything except for Derek. He admits that Derek is the one thing in his life that has always fit.

Phrases like ‘I miss you’ and ‘I can’t wait to see you again’ appear in every letter.

And in March, Derek sits shaking at his computer when he finishes Stiles’ email.

He signed it ‘Love Stiles.’

And so Derek replies in kind, and that becomes something that they both write but never actively discuss.

And they tell each other secrets—things that are secrets from other people but confessions to each other.

Secrets like, how Stiles was scared to come out to his father. He doesn’t think that his dad is ready to hear the term bisexual. Like how Stiles still blames himself for his father’s latent drinking habits. Like how the Sheriff has been acting strange lately, starting the same conversation and never finishing it.

And how he doesn’t feel whole when Derek isn’t there.

Derek writes secrets too. Like how his family always knew that he was gay, and he resents them for that—resents that he could never tell them and have them accept his words, could never talk about it without making it an issue. Secrets, like how Stiles is the best decision Derek has ever made.

Derek doesn’t tell him everything. He doesn’t tell him about the guy he almost had sex with. He doesn’t tell him how he can’t want anyone, because Stiles is all that he wants and Stiles is still too young and maybe Derek doesn’t even deserve him anyway. He doesn’t tell him about being a werewolf. He can’t. Not without his alpha’s permission.

He doesn’t know what secrets Stiles doesn’t tell him. He does know that he’s not strong enough to guess.

 

  
Laura wants to pick him up at the airport, but he tells her that Stiles already offered. He had to talk his mom out of coming too. ‘I have something to tell you honey, it’s important,’ she says when they talk before his flight, and he hums agreement, but only thinks of Stiles. Stiles. Stiles.

Derek can’t remember any of his four flights. He doesn’t know how he made his way across countless airport terminals and kept track of his luggage and sat through twenty hours in a metal box in the air.

The only thing he can think about is Stiles.

And then he’s back in California, and stepping off the plane, and he can hear the heartbeat that he’s unconsciously been straining to hear for the last ten months.

He doesn’t notice the stares as he runs through the terminal. He doesn’t need to scan the waiting crowd to find Stiles. His heart is pounding like a beacon brighter and more powerful than the sun.

Derek stops ten feet away, before Stiles notices him.

Stiles is taller, almost his height. He looks like a man now. At seventeen, he has muscle in his shoulders and arms, the shape of his face is more defined. His hair is longer, and his eyes bright as he nervously scans the incoming travelers.

And his smile, when he sees Derek, is breathtaking.

Derek has never seen that smile from him before. It’s deeper than the tentative sweet ones that filled the first few years of their friendship. It’s more than the grins they exchanged over Skype and at breaks. It’s like the world is suddenly alright, just because Derek is there. It’s everything that Derek feels.

Stiles sprints to Derek before he can take more than a step, and throws his arms around Derek’s neck.

Derek pulls him close, arms around Stiles’ back, and buries his face in the younger man’s neck. He knows that if his eyes weren’t closed, they would be shining beta gold. He feels Stiles’ heart pounding throughout his whole body, and relishes the shift of muscles under his hands. The body Derek holds is different—there are changes from the last time they saw each other, but the fit is still perfect.

They hug for minutes, and Derek can smell the brief rush of saline tears that Stiles hastily wipes away when he pulls back. Derek knows that his face is mirroring Stiles’ smile, and they just stare at each other, smiling, for several long moments, hands clasping the other's forearms.

Stiles is only an inch or two shorter than Derek now, and he licks his lips once before stepping back into Derek’s space. He lifts his right hand to Derek’s face, gently caressing his cheek, thumb rasping over rough stubble, and Derek can’t help but close his eyes and lean into the touch.

He opens them, and Stiles looks triumphant. He brings his other hand up to frame Derek’s face, leans forward, and gently presses his lips to Derek’s.  
And that moment. That moment makes up for every day and year that Derek has waited. It makes up for every achingly lonely night and missed call. It makes up for everything.

He takes a long few seconds to savor it. The brush of Stiles’ soft lips, the warm breath, the heady scent of Stiles and mate.

It ends to quickly. Stiles pulls away, wary, concerned. He opens his mouth, to apologize maybe, and Derek doesn’t give him a chance, because it’s like a dam has burst.

He gathers Stiles into his arms, pulls him flush to his own body, and devours his mouth.

Stiles meeps in surprise, and then melts into Derek’s arms.

He doesn’t know how much time passes where he and Stiles kiss. Gentle, searing, wet, slow. Everything.

They finally stop, both panting, and Stiles drops his chin, hiding a shy smile. Derek grips his jaw and gently raises his head.

“Don’t hide,” he says. “You’re beautiful. Never hide your face from me,” he tells Stiles, and the teen throws himself at Derek and pulls him into a tight hug.

“I love you,” he whispers, and Derek had thought that this day couldn’t get any more perfect. Well, he had been wrong.

He dips his head back into the crease between Stiles’ head and shoulder, and kisses a line up his neck.

“I love you too, Stiles,” he says. “I love you so much.”

Stiles pulls back, a calculating grin on his face. “We should continue this in bed,” he says. “Naked.”

Derek closes his eyes briefly and asks for patience. He feels himself already getting hard, and just thinking about Stiles naked in bed… It’s what he beats off to. It’s almost instinct.

“You’re seventeen,” Derek growls when he finally opens his eyes, his erection under slightly better control.

“Oh man, no way!” Stiles looks disappointed, but not crestfallen, as though it’s exactly what he had been expecting.

“You’re dad’s the Sheriff,” Derek says. “And it’s only eight months.”

“Oh god,” Stiles whines, closing the space between them again, his hands sliding down Derek’s sides to briefly cup his ass, like he owns Derek’s skin even if the permission is new. “Eight months of nothing but blue balls. And you’re just so hot Derek, like sizzling.”

Derek chuckles, his palms settling on Stiles’ hips. “And you’re gorgeous, Stiles, and I love you, and I want to fuck you so bad,” he whispers, and Stiles moans.

“You can’t say things like that.”

“But,” Derek continues. “I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize us, because you mean too much to me. You’re too important to me. I want to have you for as long as I can, and if that means waiting a couple of months to get you naked, then that’s what’s going to happen.”

Stiles pulls back, his face worryingly blank.

“You really mean that?” He asks. “Is this real? Can I really have you?”

“Yes,” Derek says.

“How did I get so lucky?” Stiles ponders, his eyes mapping Derek’s face. “Okay, we’ll wait, but I have a proposal then. I know that you’ll be back at school for my eighteenth birthday, but one of us is going to fly across the country so we can spend it together, okay?”

“Okay.”

“So we’ll wait, but you are going to screw my brains out on my eighteenth birthday. And even before that,” he pauses, looking suddenly vulnerable. “And even though we aren’t getting naked together yet, you still have me, and I’ll still have you. Do you accept?”

“Yes Stiles,” Derek says, and he feels like his smile reaches past his face to his whole body, to his soul, to his wolf. “I accept.”

And it’s a good thing that Stiles throws himself at Derek again, because he no longer has control over his eyes, his wolf just wants to howl, and the only reason he doesn’t shift is because Stiles’ scent and that of ‘mate’ calms him.

He doesn’t even care that he made a one-sided lifelong commitment to a seventeen year-old. It’s not anything he could ever regret.  


 

The car ride is too short, and they mostly talk of telling their families about their new relationship status, trying to slip ‘boyfriend’ in to the conversation as much as possible, and exchanging the words ‘i love you’ at every opportunity. Laura would tell him it’s incredibly sappy, and he wouldn’t disagree. But it’s also perfect.

The only way Derek can force himself out of the car is because he will see Stiles in a few short hours for a big dinner at the Sheriff’s.  
Stiles stays in the Jeep, and Derek walks around to his side.

“I have something important to tell you,” he says. “But I have to get my mom’s permission first, because I’ve wanted to tell you this for years but I haven’t been allowed to.” Derek pauses and bows his head, wishing that he could override the alpha command.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Is it a bad thing?”

“No.”

“Then why do you look so freaked out?”

“Because I’m scared that you won’t love me anymore when you find out.”

Stiles pulls Derek’s head down to plant a searing kiss on his lips. “There is nothing you could tell me that could ever make me love you less than I do, Derek Hale. And I love you more than I ever thought possible. I promise that won’t change.”

Derek sighs, a partial relief spreading through his limbs.

“Okay,” he says, eyes closed. “You need to leave right now or I don’t think I’ll be able to let you go.”

He hears Stiles’ chuckle, the revving of the Jeep’s engine, and the softening of Stiles’ heartbeat as he drives away.

Derek only opens his eyes when his uncle pats his shoulder with surprising kindness.

“Should I tell my sister not to worry about you ever finding your mate?” Peter asks.

Derek spins around, remembering the words his mother told him almost seven years before. “How…?”

Peter shakes his head. “You must have known, all of these years,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell your mother?”

“Don’t,” Derek says. “Promise me you won’t tell her. Stiles doesn’t know about mates or werewolves yet.”

“That’s going to change very soon,” Peter says.

“What?”

“Talia decided to let the Stilinskis in on the little family secret.”

“Really? Why?”

Peter frowns, his old sorrow surfacing again. “You need to talk to your mother about that. And soon. Derek…” He pauses and runs a distraught hand through his hair. “I’ll talk to her. Someone has to say something. You should have years ago. But you deserve this, Derek. Everyone deserves the chance… I’ll talk to her.”

“No,” Derek begs him. “Please don’t. I’ll do it, just promise you won’t say anything.”

“As long as you talk to her before you Accept.”

Derek feels his stomach drop. Too late. An hour too late.

“Okay,” he says, and because of The Advantage, he knows that Peter won’t be able to tell he’s lying.

But there’s something wrong and disconcerting about his uncle’s expression. It often contains the traces of sadness and misery, but for once they seem to be directed at or for Derek, rather than for himself.

Peter pats him once more on the shoulder and then walks into the forest.

Derek gathers his bags and walks into the house, hoping for a shower before his mother and sisters return.  


 

Derek doesn’t have the chance to talk to his mom in private before the dinner. They (minus Peter) pile into Laura’s SUV and arrive at the Stilinski’s house only ten minutes late. Stiles bowls into Derek and they exchange a too brief, slightly awkward, and very chaste hug. The Sheriff (It’s John, son) pulls Derek into a warm embrace and then they all settle at the dining room table eating Stiles’ lasagne and hearing stories of Derek’s time abroad and Mrs. Lexington’s run-away-cat-extravaganza.

By the time dessert has finished, all of the awkward is gone, and Derek has to almost physically restrain himself from reaching for Stiles, and settles on staring at his face throughout the evening.

Every time Stiles catches him staring, and returns a small, pleased, and private smile, Derek can’t believe how lucky he is. That this precious person is his.

“So Stiles,” Talia says as Laura collects the empty dishes and hauls them into the kitchen. “There’s actually something important that I, well, all of us, want to tell you. And we’ve waited until Derek came home so that we could do it together.”

Derek raises his eyebrows. Is this how she’s going to do the big reveal?

“I already spoke with your dad about this.”

Really? Why would his mom tell the Sheriff first?

“And we have something else to tell you all in a little, but we wanted to make sure that you were okay with this first,” she continues.

“Okay?” Stiles shoots Derek a perplexed look.

“Stiles,” Talia says. “The Hales—we’re werewolves.”

“What?”

And then of course, his mother, without any warning, does a partial shift, and Stiles jumps out of his chair.

“Holy freaking mother of god what the fuck!?”

“Language,” the Sheriff says, but he’s relaxed, and mostly amused by his son’s response. “But that’s pretty much how I responded.”

Stiles stands, panting, his eyes glued to Derek.

“You too?” he asks, and Derek nods. “Show me? Please?”

Derek hesitates.

“Please?”

He holds his breath, and shifts.

Stiles stands frozen for several long moments, his father and the Hales waiting for a response.

It finally comes.

Stiles levels Derek with an intense glare. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he demands, and then leaps to the door. He runs outside, and before Derek can get it together enough to stand, the Jeep is already out of the driveway and down the road.

“It’s okay,” the Sheriff says. “He’ll come around, he just needs to process it.”

Derek settles uncomfortably in his chair. This is decidedly not how he wanted that reveal to go. He turns to his mom.

“Why didn’t you talk to me about this first?” he demands. “I had a whole plan on how to tell him. You couldn’t give me a heads-up? I’m the one whose been friends with him for all these years!”

He doesn’t realize that he’s on his feet and shouting until his mom flashes her red alpha eyes on him.

“Sit down,” she commands, and he drops into his chair. “I had a reason,” she says. “John and I decided that we should tell him together before we tell him the rest.”

“The rest of what?” Derek demands. His gaze flicks between his sisters, who won’t meet his eyes, the Sheriff, who looks slightly peeved, and his mom, who wears a small frown.

“John and I are getting married,” she says. “We’ve fallen in love. I love him.”

Derek stops breathing. He must have heard wrong.

Her eyes don’t leave his face, and her frown deepens. “We talked about it, and we’re hoping that I can legally adopt Stiles before he turns eighteen so you can all be real siblings.”

Derek is on his feet.

He can’t feel his hands, he can’t feel his face. The air is too heavy, too tight. He rushes through the kitchen to the back door and out into the yard. The night gathers close around him, and pain shoots through his limbs.

He suddenly understands Peter. He felt pity for his uncle, certainly, but he never understood why the man couldn’t just get over it. Nobody could possibly recover from this type of pain.

His mother is at his side. “Calm down,” she says, her alpha command a heavy growl. “Don’t shift.”

But her words don’t even touch him. He hears them, but they carry no weight.

He falls to his knees, crying out. It feels like every bone in his body is breaking. Every bone in his body is breaking.

The seams of his clothes burst and rip, and he writhes at the overwhelming pain. His mother is shouting at him, but the alpha doesn’t control his heart, he already gave those reins away, and his anchor, the only person who could stop this, Stiles, isn’t here.

The pain in his body lessens, and he wrestles out of the remainder of his clothes, tearing them with his sharp teeth.

He sprints to the fence and leaps over, his shaggy belly clearing the wood by more than a foot, and all sensation save pain leaves him as he races into the forest, a wolf running from truths too terrible.  


 

He hears his mother howl for him once or twice, but the noise is easy to block out. The reason why he is out here is more difficult to escape, but the wolf serves as a buffer.

He wonders only briefly at this full shift. It shouldn’t be possible. He isn’t an alpha. It’s so rare for a beta to be able to complete the full shift, but the again it’s rare to have a human mate, especially one who didn’t grow up in a pack.

He tries not to think about it.

Instead of feeling his heart breaking, he feels the mud and dirt beneath his paws. Instead of seeking out the scent of his mate, he sniffs at mice and rabbits in the underbrush. Instead of crying in despair he runs and runs and runs until there is nothing to do but crawl under a fallen log and sleep while his muscles, though not his heart, repair themselves.

His mother finds him. He doesn’t know how much time has passed. He hasn’t moved from the log.

“Well this is impressive,” she says. “It’s amazing Derek! I’m sorry to have dumped that all on you and surprised you like I did. I know it was such a shock. But this is amazing!”

Derek doesn’t respond. It’s almost easier to pretend that she isn’t there. He doesn’t hear the words she says.

At one point she crouches in front of him, flashes her alpha eyes and roars at him to change back. It doesn’t work. She frowns, and eventually leaves.  
She returns at some point, it might be the same day or a week later, Derek hasn’t been keeping track.

“I know that it’s confusing in this form, Derek, but if you come back to the house, I can help you shift back. My aunt got stuck in a full shift one time, and she told me how freaked out she was. Come home and I’ll help you shift back. Come on Derek, I’m worried about you.”

He doesn’t even open his eyes when she leaves.

Derek only moves when he hear a familiar heartbeat. By the time Stiles is within sight, Derek can’t help but whine, high-pitched and needy. He doesn’t move.

“Derek?” Stiles’ voice is hesitant, shaky. Derek can smell his fear and uncertainty. His anxiety and sadness is rank. “Dude, you’re enormous, and gorgeous.”

He doesn’t move when Stiles slowly settles at his side, and tentatively licks the proffered hand with another sad whine.

“So I guess that this was the important thing that you wanted to tell me. I guess I didn’t take it that well. But what I told you earlier,” he says and wipes at the tears on his face. “I stand by what I told you earlier. This doesn’t make me love you any less, even when you’re a… dog, wolf creature.”

Derek huffs and Stiles offers a weak and wet chuckle.

“I still love you man, so much,” he says, and his voice breaks.

Derek can’t stand not touching him anymore. He stands on shaky legs. How long has it been since he’s moved? Since he’s eaten anything?

He steps towards Stiles and gently licks away his tears, licking around his face and jaw until Stiles tips onto his back, his hands in front of his face in defense, laughing. Derek settles over Stiles’ body, placing small nibbles along his neck. Stiles brings his arms around Derek’s back, nestling his hands in thick black fur.

“I didn’t know,” his voice cracks. “I just thought they were friends. I didn’t know they were dating. I didn’t know that it was your mom that was making my dad happy again. I was too happy because of you to even notice. And now…”

He starts crying for real, and Derek cleans the tears away and lets Stiles grip his body tighter.

“I told them that I don’t want your mom adopting me. And the thing is, that if I tell my dad, he’d call it all off, just for me, I know it, but he’d be miserable. And he’s so happy. He hasn’t been happy since my mom died,” Stiles sobs.

Derek can’t stop the high whines being pulled from his throat.

“Dad said that they’ll hold off on the wedding until I feel a little more comfortable with things. Comfortable with things,” Stiles repeats, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I don’t know what to do, Derek. Tell me what to do. Just change back, and tell me.”

Stiles cries into Derek’s coat for at least another hour, and then stands without warning, and walks away. Derek doesn’t move, only whines at the disappearing figure, and settles his head on his paws.

He’s discovered another good thing about this form: he can’t cry like this.

 

Stiles returns the next day and feeds him ham sandwiches and water from a bottle and doesn’t say anything, but kisses his muzzle twice, softly.

The next time Stiles comes by, his hands are shaking, and the stink of nerves precede his footsteps.

“So,” he says. “We’re going to be brothers, it seems.” The tone is derisive, bitter. “And I really want you in my life, but if I can’t have you as my boyfriend or lover or life partner, then I don’t know how to be with you. I don’t know how to be your friend anymore. And we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, later, so we need to be okay around each other. But I just can’t…”

He takes a large steadying breath, and his next words aren’t as shaky. He’s practiced what he was going to say.

“I can’t see you for a while. I don’t think I can talk to you either. Which really sucks, because even before I fell in love with you, you have been my best friend, and I really need you. But I just can’t do it. Not now, maybe not never.”

Derek whines.

“Okay, someday, definitely, but it hurts too much right now.” He bends down and presses a gentle kiss to Derek’s forehead. “You don’t know how much I wish for things to be different. I love you.”

Stiles leaves, and doesn’t looks back.

Derek makes his way to the river, walking for miles through the cold water, until he knows that his scent is almost gone, and he finds a good outcropping of rocks.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when Peter swats his nose with a newspaper, waking him from strange dreams.

“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, Derek,” he says. “I think I should tell Talia, because you don’t deserve this. She already got her chance, you should get yours. But I don’t want to betray your trust, because, kid, you’re gonna need me. You’re gonna need all the help you can get, and it still won’t be enough.”

Derek blinks at him.

Peter sighs, reaches into his backpack and feeds Derek a package of hotdogs, and a bottle of water to wash it down.

“It’s time,” he says. “I went feral for two weeks. But Derek, it’s time to come back. You have The Advantage, so nobody will bother you if you lie to them. But Derek, you should have told me you already Accepted.”

Derek feels his bones shift, softly this time, in a gentle rearrangement, as though the human and wolf within him are having an amicable negotiation.

When he finally has a human mouth, he laughs bitterly.

“I Accepted an hour before we had that conversation, uncle,” he croaks.

Peter frowns, and tosses him a pair of sweat pants and a shirt, both from the backpack.

“Tell your mother. She’ll do the right thing.”

“The right thing?” Derek parrots, struggling to thread his dirty legs into the pants. “Isn’t being happy and choosing happiness the right thing? Who says I deserve to be happy over her?”

“Why is it an either or?”

Derek scoffs. “You think that mom will be okay with being with the Sheriff if she knows that my mate is his son?”

Peter’s frown is answer enough.

The rocks are cool under Derek’s feet, and his hands shake as he pulls down his shirt. “Does it get better?” He asks.

“No,” Peter says, and turns away, towards the closest road where he must have parked. “It never gets better, but you learn how to live with it. You become different.”

“It changes you,” Derek whispers.

“How can it not?” Peter replies.

Derek wishes that he had an answer to that.

 

His mother and sisters hug him when he returns, and he neither answers their questions nor engages in voluntary conversation. He overhears Cora and their mother speaking, attributing his personality change to his acquisition of the full shift. He doesn’t correct them.

The Sheriff tells them that Stiles is finishing the summer in Santa Barbara with Scott. No one but Derek notices that he hasn’t talked to Stiles since the woods. He hasn’t truly spoken to Stiles since they exchanged their ‘I love you’s’ and Derek thought that he could have everything he ever wanted and didn’t know how much he needed.

So he holes up in Peter’s library, and his uncle runs endless interference, and when it gets to be too much, they hike out into the preserve, and Derek runs around as a wolf and destroys dead pieces of wood and Peter tries to convince him to tell Talia.

By the time he goes back to school, his mother has asked him several times if he’s okay (he’s not), expressed concern over his time spent and relationship with Peter, and tried to talk to him about the full shift and alpha commands, and every time, Peter would distract his sister or create a diversion and send a small, sympathetic smile Derek’s way, a smile that nobody had ever seen before, and which seems reserved solely for Derek.

He doesn’t remember his senior year of college.

He spends too much time in the library. He acquires a job that has him working days and studying nights and never sleeping. He elects to complete an honors thesis, and cries over every book he reads because Stiles isn’t reading them too and he hasn’t heard from him in months. He rewrites perfect essays. He misses Thanksgiving break and Christmas break and his roommates leave the numbers to mental health hotlines pinned to his door, and he tells them that he’s training for a marathon when he spends sleepless nights running through damp streets.

If the day he met Stiles felt like living for the first time, the day he lost Stiles signaled the opposite. He isn’t really living. He sends Stiles a text on his birthday, two words, not three, and spends the night as a wolf so he won’t cry anymore. There is no response.

He flies out early, misses graduation (though he received honors), and returns to Beacon Hills bearing a permanent scowl and dark circles, thirty pounds lighter, with the inability to string more than four words together at once, and very little recollection of the previous year.

Peter picks him up at the airport, and he can’t help but compare it to the year before with Stiles.

“How was your year?”

“I don’t know,” Derek admits. “I don’t remember much.”

“The first couple years are like that,” Peter says, and they slide into the car. It’s easier like this, when they don’t have to look at each other when they talk. It’s also easier that Peter understands.

“In the beginning it hurts too much to really be present. I have only a handful of memories from the first five years.”

Derek nods and swallows. He already knows what he has to look forward to. The ache of missing Stiles so much that his whole body feels like it’s slowly splintering. The waves of longing, coursing through him with nowhere to go, leaving him weak, depleted. And there’s nothing he can do.

He’s not surprised, but dismayed, when his mom and sisters are waiting for him on the front yard.

Cora rams him against the car as she hugs him, and his mother and Laura wear matching frowns as they approach.

“What they hell happened to you?” Laura demands. “You look like a skinny, sick, human. What the hell?”

“I missed you so much!” Cora whispers. “I can’t believe that you didn’t come home for any breaks.”

His mother gives him a swift hug and gentle kiss on his cheek.

“Congratulations, sweetie,” she tells him, and unloads one of his bags. “I thought John and Stiles and Scott might want to come to welcome you home as well, but Stiles said he hasn’t talked to you in a while. You should make more of an effort to stay in touch! He’s going to be your brother.”

Peter’s heavy hand on his shoulder is the only things that keeps Derek from shooting off into the forest.

“Really, Talia?” he says, hustling her towards the house. “Your baby boy just graduated with honors from a top university and you’re chastising him! If you start now, it’ll never end. Don’t you want to know about all the shenanigans he got up to on the other side of the country?”

Derek exhales as the enter the house, Laura following with another load. Cora finally releases him from her hug and touches his face, concerned.

“Laura’s right, you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” he says, and doesn’t have the energy to make it sarcastic.

“Something’s up, and if you ever want to talk to me about it, I’m here.”

Derek nods, and then jerks towards the woods.

“I’m gonna take a run,” he says.

Cora waves and grabs his last suitcase. Derek walks to the trees, steps into the forest, sheds his clothes and his humanity, and just runs. He doesn’t pause as the night darkens around him. He doesn’t return when rain begins to fall or when the sky lightens again. The only thing that makes him stop, sides heaving, is a familiar heartbeat, and it’s elevated.

He races towards the sound.

Stiles is running, and Derek’s panic lessens when he realizes that Stiles isn’t in trouble. He isn’t running from something. He’s just running. The smooth lines of his gait are unhurried and practiced. This is familiar territory for him. Derek wonders if Stiles also spent the year running from his grief.  
Derek paces him, staying hidden behind the trees. He watches when Stiles stops, gasping at the top of a small hill after a sprint, and watches him wipe sweat from his face with the bottom of his shirt. He can’t suppress a whine at seeing Stiles’ flushed skin and taut muscles.

Stiles straightens with a frown, looking in Derek’s direction for several moments, and then continues on.

Nobody comments when Derek returns to the house, or when he disappears into the forest every morning thereafter in an attempt to find Stiles again.

Nobody comments when he and Peter miss the family gatherings, or when Peter always seems to turn the conversation away from the Stilinskis.  
It’s only when Peter is out for the night that his mother corners him.

It’s obviously an intervention. They’re in the back den—no windows, one door. Laura guards the entrance, Cora at her side. No escape.

His mother stands, arms crossed, concern marring her face.

“My brother’s not in the house, so don’t expect him to bail you out of this,” she says.

“I know.” Derek’s voice is empty, his face blank. He sits in one of the leather recliners. At least he’s comfortable.

“Derek, you need to tell me what’s going on. I’m seriously concerned.” His mother’s face is calm, but her shoulders are stiff and she can’t hide the desperation in her voice.

“I know,” he says, and it must be the wrong thing to say, because she breaks into a frown.

“Just spill so I can leave,” Laura says. “You were always the expert broody sulker, but even for you this is excessive.”

“Derek, just tell me.”

“No.”

“Don’t make me ask again,” Talia says. They all learned early that it’s the warning she gives when she’s about to pull out her alpha voice.

“Wouldn’t work, anyway,” he says, and then freezes. He didn’t mean to admit that, but it’s too late, because his mother already picked up on his slip.

“Why wouldn’t it work? Am I no longer your alpha? Derek?”

“You know you’re still my alpha, mom.” Each word he speaks is measured and bland.

Her nostrils flare, and then she swallows. “How long?” she asks.

“How long what?” Laura demands.

“How long have you known?”

“I don’t have to answer,” Derek says, his voice still lacking inflection.

“Known what?” This time the question comes from Cora.

Talia sinks down to sit on the low couch across from Derek, and rubs a distracted hand across her face.

“That’s why Peter…” she doesn’t finish.

“What’s going on?” Laura says, stepping into the room and away from the door.

“When do alpha commands not work?” Talia queries.

Cora sighs. “When you have The Advantage.”

Laura’s eyebrows shoot up. “Derek found his mate?! Derek?”

He finds their eyes, but isn’t able to respond.

“Peter knew, didn’t he? That’s why he’s been so protective of you. That’s why he got you to turn back when I couldn’t,” she says. “This started after your junior year. Is he in Africa? Your mate?” Talia asks quietly.

Derek laughs, and he realizes that this is the first time in months that he’s actually laughed. And that makes him laugh all the harder, because there isn’t really anything funny about this situation. It’s probably better than crying, better than going feral.

And he can’t stop laughing. He’s gasping for breath now, giddy, and they’ve all gathered around him, worried glances and caring hands reaching to him.

“Derek, you’re not okay,” his mother tells him.

“Obviously,” Cora hisses.

“Did you,” Talia begins as Derek’s breaths calm. “You didn’t, did you? You Accepted, didn’t you?”

And there he goes again, laughing, the sheer horror on his mom’s face nothing compared to the pain in his heart, nothing compared to the utter perfection of the moment when he gave himself fully to the one person in the world who should be his.

He doesn’t pay attention to the shouting and the people hovering over him and pushing at him, until Peter’s voice joins the cacophony.

“What do you think you’re doing?” his uncle demands, and his time Derek doesn’t think it’s directed at him.

His uncle pushes everyone else away, slaps Derek twice, and presses their foreheads together.

“Snap out of it,” he hisses at Derek while shoving his sister to the side. And the only reason he gets away with such a move is because Talia is completely focused on Derek, her skin sallow.

“Is he going feral?” she whispers, and Derek starts laughing again until Peter’s hand covers his mouth.

Peter levels a searing glare at his sister. “Don’t say anything. Don’t you dare say anything.”

“But if he would just tell us who.”

“No!” Derek shouts, pushing Peter’s hand out of the way.

His uncle leans forward again. “Derek, don’t prioritize others’ happiness over your own. Please. I have to live like this, but you don’t. Please,” he gasps.

Derek lets his head fall forward and rest briefly against his uncle’s forehead.

“You mean you chose this?” his mother says. “Why would you do that?”

Derek opens his eyes, searching out his mother’s face. “I love you,” he says simply, pulls his uncle into a tight hug, and then leaves the room. The words are an answer, a cause, and a constant. Cora follows him silently as he walks into the forest.

She speaks after twenty minutes. “They’re happy, but they aren’t mates, you know.”

Derek doesn’t reply.

“Mom and the Sheriff.”

He stops, his eyes finding her sad face in the dark.

“He wants his dad to be happy. I can’t sacrifice anyone else's happiness but my own,” he confesses, his voice scratchy, and eyes hot.

“What about your life?” Cora demands. “How much of a life has Peter had? How much of a life are you really going to have?”

He doesn’t even try to lie. “At least they’re happy. I can’t take that away from them. They deserve to be happy.”

“What about what you deserve?” his sister is crying now, the moonlight sifting through the branches reflects on her wet face.

Derek shakes his head. She doesn’t understand. This pain is his burden. He feels it so the people he cares about don’t. And it’s so heavy and expansive and all-encompassing, that there isn’t any other space left in his life, for him to live. For him to want anything.

“He’s not happy,” Cora gasps. “He’s not. He doesn’t talk anymore. He doesn’t joke or smile. He’s fucking miserable! You think Stiles isn’t just as big of a martyr as you are?”

And that does it. He crumples. Cora tries to catch him, and even though he’s lost a lot of his weight and muscle, she’s too far away to completely arrest his fall.

He’s just too tired, he tells her. He just doesn’t think that he can do it anymore. It’ll get better for Stiles, he’s human, so it will get better, but it won’t ever get better for him and his stupid broken werewolf heart.

He feels bad that Cora seems so upset about it. She calls someone, their mom, and he tries to listen to the conversation, but then even that becomes too much.

“There’s something wrong with Derek,” she says, and her voice shakes. “Mom, I think he’s dying,” she chokes out, and Derek realizes that she believes that. He wonders if it’s true. And he’s almost too tired to care.

After Cora ends the call the sits with him, rocking him, talking to him.

He catches her arm when he hears the approach of running feet.

“Don’t tell her. Promise?” he whispers. “If something happens… she deserves to be happy, and she won’t be if you tell her. Please.”

He doesn’t know if she promises, and he doesn’t know how he gets back to the house, but the next time he’s conscious, he is lying on his bed and his entire family is in his room shouting at each other. The stop when they realize he’s awake.

“Please, Derek.” It’s Peter again, brushing hair from his face. “You need to tell her.”

“Just tell her,” Cora echoes.

Derek can’t even shake his head.

“I’m going to call John and Stiles, tell them what’s happening,” Laura says.

“No!” Derek shouts, panic racing through him. He thrashes against the covers and both Peter and Cora restrain him.

“They might want to come over,” Laura says, her confusion evident.

Talia’s frown is back.

“Don’t, don’t,” Derek chants, finally falling back against the covers, suddenly exhausted. His eyelids close, and as the world rushes away from him, his mother’s voice registers.

“I’m so sorry honey. I’m so sorry,” she says, the only sounds in the endless reprieve of darkness.  
  
  
  
He wakes slowly. It’s his room, he knows, and the pain that he lives with is still there, but the constant, throbbing ache in his chest is curiously absent.

“So you really couldn’t live without me, huh?”

Derek’s eyes snap open. “I’m dreaming,” he says, raising the hand not clasped in Stiles’ to the teen’s face. “You’re a dream.”

“No,” Stiles says, his lip quirking into something that could resemble a smile. “This is real.” He bends closer, pressing his forehead against Derek’s and they just breathe each other in. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

“Never,” Derek whispers.

“No, I thought you were going to die. Peter said, your mom said…” Stiles chokes off, tears sliding from his face to Derek’s.

“I guess I couldn’t live without you.”

“It’s not funny.”

Derek sighs, breathing in Stiles’ scent, something he never forgot and always wants. Honeysuckle and cardamon and rain. Just, Stiles.

“I just wanted everyone to be happy.”

“You’re everyone to me,” Stiles says and straightens, but cups Derek’s face with his hand. “I thought I could put other people in front of me. I thought I could prioritize my dad’s happiness before my own, I thought I could wait it out or make myself feel differently. I thought I could handle it, or give you up, and I was wrong.”

Derek watches Stiles’ eyes as they seem to catalogue the contours of his face.

“I need you in my life,” Stiles says. “And I need you as my boyfriend, my love, Derek, I’ve known for years that you were always my other half.”

Derek blinks tears from his eyes.

“I’ve known since you were eleven and crying alone on the playground,” Derek confesses.

Stiles’ smile is blinding. “Good.”

“I can’t let you go, I love you too much.”

“You don’t have to,” Stiles says. “Our parents will be okay, we’re going to work it all out. I talked to them, it’s going to be okay. But I need you to be okay.”

“I’m always okay when you’re here.”

The teen grins again, toes off his shoes, strips out of his jeans and flannel shirt, left only in his boxers and t-shirt. He pushes Derek farther across the bed and slides beneath the covers, wrapping his arms and legs around the man.

Derek watches Stiles move, watches his eyelashes, his lips, trying to reconcile the fact that maybe he can actually have this person again after a year of not being able to. What is a year of torture with the prospect of life with Stiles?

“You’re all skinny.” Stiles’ voice is surprised.

“I’m alive.” It’s the only response he can think of.

Stiles whimpers at that, and buries his head against Derek’s chest, fresh tears in his eyes.

“Living without you wasn’t much of a life,” Derek admits and Stiles lifts himself over the prone body, easing his mouth over Derek’s.

“Well, luckily you won’t have to do it again,” Stiles says after a long kiss. He runs his hands over Derek’s chest, up under his shirt. “And don’t think that I’ve forgotten about my birthday promise. You owe me, wolf boy.”

Derek’s arms snake around Stiles’ back and pull him down on top of the werewolf. He first nuzzles the boy’s neck, and then attacks his mouth. By the time Stiles lifts his head, his eyes are glazed and his dick forms a line of pressure against Derek’s stomach.

“I didn’t forget,” Derek says, feeling the weight of exhaustion pull at him, along with an overwhelming sense of contentment and too much emotion. All of the pain that he’d experienced over the last year, all of the times he thought he might not have the strength to keep suffering—he can’t believe that all of that is over. The relief brings tears.

Stiles rests his head on Derek’s chest and rubs his hand over muscle and bone, soothing shaky breaths.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, and leans up to place a warm kiss on Derek’s nose and chin, damp cheeks, ending with his mouth. “It’s gonna be okay, because I love you.”

Derek closes his eyes, Stiles’ weight settling him.

“Yeah, just get some rest.”

Derek pulls Stiles closer when the teen shifts on top of him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” Derek’s voice is barely a whisper.

“I promise,” Stiles says, and Derek grins.

He falls asleep to the music of their shared heartbeats.

**Author's Note:**

> Derek never had the Paige or Kate incidents, ergo gold eyes and not blue.  
> Papa Hale has been dead for many years before the story begins.  
> A little OOC, a lot head canon


End file.
